‘What do you do?’ Why having a unifier helps when you’re multidimensional

My career path has been somewhat unconventional. It doesn’t fit into neat boxes. There have been overlapping roles, ventures and side projects that can’t be plotted in a simple, linear way. I’ve always found answering the ‘what do you do?’ question hard because I can’t give a snappy one word answer: there are too many hard-to-explain weird bits to it! Even when I worked for a company, I took on side roles alongside my main one because I simply enjoyed the diversity. So, unsurprisingly perhaps, I’ve never been a fan of labels.

I explored that theme of being multi-dimensional back in 2009 when it was the crux of my second book, ‘Juggle! Rethink work, reclaim your life’ and then again in 2012 in my fourth book ‘Mash-up! How To Use Your Multiple Skills to Give You an Edge, Make Money and Be Happier!’ While researching ‘Juggle!’ I spoke to Baratunde Thurston, writer, producer and podcaster, who also does a lot of things. I liked his answer to the ‘what do you do?’ question. “I just do Me!” he told me.

I wrote these books ‘on the side’ to my day job, but being an author is not my main gig. I guess a lot of what I’ve done has involved going where the water flows and spotting opportunities.

The term ‘entrepreneurial’ springs to mind - where you take a risk to do something in the hope of it being commercially viable. Like, when I wasn’t actively a marketeer but then started up a virtual marketing agency, sort of by accident. I took a leap of faith and started a media production venture with my cousin. And now I run a business with my wife. When I started working for myself I joked I performed a magic trick - turning thin air into invoices. Even now, it’s about taking risks, saying yes to projects that sit out of my comfort zone.

So back to where we started. Perhaps you also feel like you can’t be categorised or that you thrive at doing more than one thing. So what do you call yourself? It can be a challenge in a world that likes definitions.

In ‘Mash-Up!’ that I co-wrote with my friend David Sloly, we introduced the concept of a unifier: the common thread that ties your skills together with an underlying purpose or clarity. My unifier is that I’m about making the world of work more human. It helps keep me on track and when I’m offered a new project, I work out whether it’s going to fit within my overriding purpose.

What’s your unifier? People have been replying to my question over on LinkedIn - follow the conversation here.